A Long Island man arrested in Penn Station with a loaded gun who threatened to shoot up a synagogue as part of a violent plot against members of New York City’s Jewish community was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday.
The sentence was handed down to Christopher Brown, 23, at a Manhattan Supreme Court hearing.
Brown pleaded guilty to criminal possession of a weapon as a crime of terrorism in September,
Between Nov. 12 and Nov. 18 in 2022, the Aquebogue, L.I., man, who authorities say is mentally ill, spewed vile antisemitic remarks on social media in support of Nazi ideology and accelerationism.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the accelerationism term has been adopted by white supremacists to call for the dismantling of economic and political systems “through apocalyptic race war.”
Matthew Mahrer and Christopher Brown
Brown published comments under his @VrilGod username on Twitter like, “God wants me to shoot up a synagogue and die,” “Gonna ask a Priest if I should become a husband or shoot up a synagogue and die,” and “This time I’m really gonna do it,” according to court documents.
In court records, prosecutors said he also posted about a desire to emulate Brenton Tarrant, the mass murderer who killed 51 people and injured dozens more in an anti-Muslim attack in 2019 that constituted New Zealand’s deadliest mass shooting.
Cyber specialists from the UJA Federation of New York’s Community Security Initiative, a Jewish nonprofit, tipped off the NYPD after coming across Brown’s threatening posts on Nov. 18, the day of his arrest, prompting an interagency response.
That day, Brown paid his friend Matthew Mahrer $650 to purchase a loaded Glock 17 firearm illegally in Pennsylvania and traveled with him to get it, according to prosecutors. When they got back to the city, MTA police officers on alert by local and federal law enforcement spotted them at Penn Station, and they were arrested.
Inside Brown’s backpack police found an armband with a swastika on it, a large hunting knife, and a ski mask.
Mahrer has pleaded not guilty to related charges in a pending case.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams’ office in February secured a 27-month sentence of Jamil Hakime following his conviction for a conspiracy offense tied to his sale of a gun and 19 rounds of ammunition to Brown and Mahrer.
“Today Christopher Brown was sentenced to a significant prison term for arming himself with an illegal firearm as part of his plan to commit an act of terror targeting Manhattan’s Jewish community,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said in a statement Wednesday.
“I know that the Jewish community in Manhattan is continuing to face rising antisemitism and violent threats, and I want everyone to know that we are using every tool possible in coordination with our law enforcement partners to keep them safe.”